6C AnnekoYau
6C AnnekoYau
F. 6C
Debate speech
You are the captain of the school debating team. Next week you will be attending the finals of
the inter‐school debating contest. The motion is “Democracy brings social disorder.” Decide
whether you are for or against the motion and write your debate speech.
Good morning everyone,
For a very long time, democracy has been cherished as a universal value of human society.
Yet, recently, there is a heated debate on whether democracy brings social disorder. According
to Oxford Advanced Dictionary, democracy means that people possess the right to monitor,
exert influence on or participate in the operation of the government equally to avoid the abuse
of power by rulers. In this sense, I strongly believe that today’s motion mustn’t stand.
First of all, some people supporting this motion argue that democracy brings social disorder
by allowing people with dissenting views to voice their opinion freely and intensifying conflicts
of ideas. They superficially believe that when people are allowed to present different views
towards social issues or government policy in a democratic society, they’ll easily disagree with
each other and more conflicts will arise because differences in ideology, social belief or political
philosophy become more apparent with a democratic and liberal atmosphere for discussion. In
my opinion, this argument is utterly unfounded and resembles the excuse of why a dictator
refuses to embrace democracy. In fact, democracy exactly prevents conflicts that arise due to
differences in values among people. With democracy, people of different social, cultural and
political backgrounds can channel their emotions and express their views more openly, which
facilitates the policy‐making of the government by taking different views into consideration and
achieving a more balanced policy. As a result, democracy creates a liberal and open atmosphere
for rational discussion among people and provides a legitimate means for people to voice
different opinions by protecting their freedom of speech. This equality‐based protection of
diverse interests and views favours protection of pluralistic values and ensures social harmony.
For instance, in Western countries like the U.S., since different people can have a say in social
affair and the government can formulate policy that caters to the needs of different groups, they
have a relatively stable society when compared to dictatorial regimes in the Middle East, where
people cannot express their opinions freely and are angered by the dictatorship, thereby leading
to more rebellions.
In addition, there are two more reasons proving that democracy brings social stability and
harmony instead of social disorder.
Firstly, democracy enables policy that better defends public interest to be made, ensuring
social stability through better safeguarding people’s livelihood. Being able to monitor the
government through voting in both president election and referendum, people can exert their
influence on the economic and social policy launched by the government, making the
government unable to manipulate national resources for selfish ends and personal gains easily.
As a result, public interests are generally safeguarded and people’s livelihood is more secure,
helping maintain social stability. For instance, in democratic countries like the U.S. and European
countries, the governments actually adopt more appropriate economic and social policy (e.g.
capitalism that ensures higher productivity) and social measures (e.g. well‐established social
security system). Furthermore, misbehaviours of government officials are limited as people can
monitor their performance with their voting power. Thus, people can effectively prevent the
abuse of power by rulers that harms national interest and become more capable of making the
government protect their interest. Hence, is it justifiable to say that democracy worsens
people’s livelihood and triggers social disorder? The significantly lower crime rate and better
social progress of democratic regimes when compared to the suppressive ones provide a crystal
clear answer.
Secondly, democracy empowers people to monitor the government through peaceful means
instead of violent means, reducing possible violence and social disorder. In a democratic society,
voting, expressing opinions through different media and running for elections are common and
effective practices to limit the power of the government. These are non‐violent means while
opinions can be expressed rationally through these ways. On the contrary, a lack of democracy
deprives people of non‐violent channels to vent their discontent towards the government due to
suppression of the freedom of speech by dictators. So, how can people not resort to violence to
express their boiling rage and end the governance of the dictator? The horrifying riots in the
Middle East to fight against dictators are concrete and indisputable evidence showing a military
rebellion against dictatorial rule caused by a lack of democracy can greatly undermine social
order. Hence, we can see that the opposite of ‘democracy brings social disorder’ is true as
democratic Western countries do not need such radical rebellions to limit the government’s
power.
To conclude, it’s clear that democracy does not necessarily lead to social disorder. It actually
works the other way round by protecting social stability through accommodation of diverse
views, protection of public interest and provision of non‐violent means to regulate the
government’s power. Hence, it’s indisputable that today’s motion must be defeated. Thank you.